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Spray Beer: 1908

Niagara Falls, New York, circa 1908. "Imperial Hotel." Where the thirsty traveler could partake of the evocatively named Spray Beer. Around the corner was a Temperance House, whose amenities might have included a milk bar. At left, a political banner advertises the Democratic presidential ticket of William Jennings Bryan and John Kern. 8x10 glass negative, Detroit Publishing Co. View full size.

The brickwork on the Imperial Hotel is fantastic. It's incredible the workmanship that was put into those old buildings. It's too bad that so many of them are gone now. I doubt that kind of work could be duplicated today.

I had no idea that our current round top US Mail box was only a 20th century creation. Would love to see more shots of this earlier incarnation, and get an idea of when these were actually made. When did the ones we now know begin?

Could you replicate this photo with a modern DSLR? You would need a stack of ND filters in order to drag the shutter enough to blur the walkers in what looks to be bright sun. They would have to be very expensive ND filters to get that tack sharp resolution.

I'm not even sure there is a lens available for a 35mm camera that would give you that wide of an angle without an extreme fisheye effect. The photographer is standing across the street from a 6 story building, and not only get the entire building in the shot but we can see halfway down the block as well. Amazing!

[Size-wise, you're comparing apples to olives. The digital analogue to images made with an 8x10 view camera would be taken with a medium- or large-format camera (Hasselblad, Phase One, Better Light) with a digital back. We have one example here. - Dave]

The upper facade of the hotel seems to be angling outward in a rather unsettling manner. But as the top of the telegraph pole on the right appears to have the same problem, I trust the hotel is in fact quite normal and the issue instead has to do with the photographer's perspective.

[The pole does have a pronounced curve, but the hotel is exactly vertical. The tilt-shift lenses used in these view cameras do create a distinctive exaggerated geometry, however. - Dave]

Having worked with the public and had people ask me "Do you work here?" while I am standing behind the cash, wearing a tacky polyester uniform with a large name-tag with the name of the store, I know that with multiple signs stating "Hotel Imperial" in every nook and cranny, people would STILL ask "Is this the Hotel Imperial?"

My favourite "Do you work here?" story: I was standing with a number of other employees, all of us wearing our bright red and white polyester uniform pant-suits, with our company name tags, all holding price-guns and a woman came up and asked "Do you work here?"

Without missing a beat I said to her "No. Sorry. We are a club which goes from store to store repricing merchandise. This is our club outfit."

The woman looked at us with confusion and said "Ummm... Oh... Sorry..." and wandered off.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo archive featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1960s. (Available as fine-art prints from the Shorpy Archive.) The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.